Chapter: 1: The Problem of Nature and Purpose
Chapter 10: The Cosmic Adventure
In God’s feeling of the world it is saved from perishing. The value
attained by God’s harmonizing the world’s contrasts abides forever. The aesthetic integration of order with freshness, stability with complexity, continuity with change, form with dynamics, and unity with variety is preserved in God’s experience in such a way that novelty does not mean loss after all. Instead novelty contributes to the "eternal vision" of
beauty, the experience of which Whitehead refers to as Peace. It is the world’s quest for this Peace, consisting in the enjoyment of Beauty, that gives it its ultimate purpose.1
However, God not only feels the world; the world also feels God as holding out to it an aim toward which it must strive. God in this mode of being felt by the world as the source of new possibilities is one of the things Whitehead has in mind when he talks about God’s Primordial Nature.2 Throughout the course of the preceding chapters we have been conscious of the modern scientific view that the world is a creative advance of evolution in which nature has continually experimented with new possibilities of order. These possibilities seem to be inexhaustible in their variety and depth. The arrangement of the world’s occasions into an array of aggregates, organisms, and societies ranging from the subatomic to the galactic, from the simple to the complex, has no limits.
The possibilities for new forms of order never seem to run out. The
"whence" of these possibilities, the source of new forms of order in the
world’s evolution, is, in part, what we mean by God.
The world in its constituent occasions has a feel for the realm of new possibilities held out to it by God. In each moment’s aesthetic
"enjoyment" and "remembering" of the past it is also shaped by an influx of novelty from the transcending field of possibilities. For the most part the experiential occasions (such as those in the inorganic world) are only minimally affected by the reservoir of novelty. And so their mode of inheritance is largely one of conformity to the past, that is to say, of efficient causation. Occasionally, however, the pressure of the possible breaks through the routines of repetition and new schemes of recurrence gain a foothold in the cosmic process. Novelty insinuates itself more dramatically into the stream of becoming, allowing for the emergence of new levels of being in which there is a greater degree of sensitivity to final causation, that is, more freedom to respond to the cosmic aim of Beauty and Peace.3
In this sense the world is not only felt by God’s aesthetic care; it also feels God as the source of new possibilities. In the mode of being felt by the world, God lures the cosmic process toward further intensification of beauty. God offers to the world, however, only those possibilities that are relevant to it at any particular phase of its becoming. For example, after the macromolecules of amino acids or nucleic acids have become sufficiently abundant, the possibility of living cells becomes a relevant new form of ordered novelty in the world’s advance. But the possibility of life would not have been relevant, say, when the earth was still a seething ball of fire. Similarly, the evolution of man would have been out of place prior to the emergence of primates. In God’s primordial nature there is a "grading" of the infinite variety of possibilities so that only some are applicable to each occasion’s enjoyment. And even here the occasion has a "freedom" to decide which of these possibilities will be included in or excluded from its unique moment of satisfaction.
In the mode of being felt, God does not force the world to fall in line with the relevant possibilities offered to it. As we noted in Chapter 6, the world has to have an aspect of indeterminacy at every level in order for it to be a world at all. Otherwise it would be a mere extension of God’s own being. Thus the world is not compelled to pattern itself rigidly and immediately according to the shape of the relevant
possibilities presented to it by God. There is room for flexibility and meandering in its response to the persuasion of its creative ground. The
"principle of uncertainty" points to an indeterminacy at the level of the
physical, and biology speaks of randomness at the level of life. At the conscious level the world’s indeterminacy takes the form of human freedom, where persons are not compelled to follow the lure of value rooted in beauty, but may instead opt for either monotony or confusion.
And at the level of civilization, we know how easy it is for the world to drift away from intense forms of ordered novelty. At all levels of the cosmic hierarchy there is at least some degree of "freedom".
Such a view of the world is not necessarily a comforting one. And it is natural for us to feel uneasy with the notion of a God who allows such a degree of "play" and "drift" to the cosmos. But I shall suggest in this chapter that the God of aesthetic care, a God of love, is also a God of adventure who does not coerce but rather persuades the world toward its fulfillment. In such a world our being ultimately cared for is not the same as a guarantee of safety. Salvation in an aesthetic scheme is not the same as being secured within a universal harmony structured according to ethical criteria. I shall approach this position by entering more
explicitly into the problem of theodicy than I have done up to this point.
In the previous chapter I attempted to show how the evil of perishing is overcome by the aesthetic care of God’s feeling the world and
sustaining its experiences in an unfading immediacy. If God is in some way like what Whitehead calls a "fellow sufferer," however, we would still have only one aspect of a theodicy, that is, only part of a response to the "problem of evil." For just as pressing is that dimension of the theodicy problem which asks why suffering, perishing, and evil are allowed to occur in the first place. It is to this question that any reflection on the idea of God, in whatever context, eventually has to return.
The Theodicy Problem
No completely satisfying answer has yet been given to the question why, if God is a reality, powerful and benevolent, evil is allowed to exist. The question "Does not the fact of evil count against the reality of God?" will always reappear. I do not pretend that the following
suggestions will adequately address this question either. For Paul Ricoeur is correct when he calls theodicy "foolishness." And yet this foolishness is irrepressible. We somehow cannot help but indulge in it.
The tremendous popularity in America of Rabbi Harold Kushner’s book, When Bad Things Happen to Good People, is recent evidence of
the perennial urgency of the theodicy question.4 People cannot help asking why bad things are allowed to happen to them in the first place, and they understandably seek a rationally acceptable answer. I think that in many ways the "answer" Kushner gives is similar to some
conclusions that may be drawn from the Whiteheadian scheme that I have outlined in the previous chapters. So it may be of some interest if I preface my discussion of theodicy by a brief summary of some of
Kushner’s ideas.
Rabbi Kushner states: "There is only one question which really matters:
why do bad things happen to good people? All other theological conversation is intellectually diverting."5 But in considering the alternative "solutions" that have typically been offered he finds it impossible to accept the idea of a God who deliberately wills the suffering of creatures, whether for the purpose of (1) punishment, (2) education, or (3) in order to contribute to the pattern of some "grand design." No sort of "higher purpose" can justify our individual suffering here and now.
Kushner maintains that if belief in God is to be acceptable at all, God cannot be understood as all-powerful in the sense of being able but not willing to eliminate suffering. Such an "omnipotent" God would not be capable of inspiring our love and respect. A God who could remove suffering and yet refused to do so because of its possible punitive or pedagogical value, or because it contributes to some universal plan, will only arouse our hatred. The only feasible idea of God, then, is one in which God wants to eliminate suffering but is incapable, for some reason, of doing so.
Let us explore Kushner’s position by looking at the three types of theodicy he finds defective. In the first place, the idea that suffering is punishment and that we deserve what we get, instead of being an answer to the problem of theodicy, often causes even more suffering in the needless guilt that we experience when we look into our lives to dig out some hidden fault or misdeed which we suspect may have aroused God’s wrath:
The idea that God gives people what they deserve, that our misdeeds cause our misfortune, is a neat and attractive solution to the problem of evil at several levels, but it has a number of serious limitations. As we have seen, it teaches people to blame themselves. It creates guilt even
where there is no basis for guilt. It makes people hate God, even as it makes them hate themselves. And most disturbing of all, it does not even fit the facts.6
The notion that suffering makes sense as punishment for misdeeds has a strong basis in biblical religion and in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic teaching. The main reason for its attractiveness is that it appeals to our native sense of fairness and justice. It goes hand in hand with what we earlier called the ethical vision with its demands that the universe correspond to our sense of moral order. And because of our passion for order we are willing to put up with any punishment that sustains this order.7 The problem with this vision, however, is that it is ultimately shipwrecked, as Paul Ricoeur puts it, on the rocks of tragic suffering.8 The story of Job, the innocent sufferer, is evidence that biblical religion itself was uncomfortable with the simplistic theodicy that makes all suffering into punishment. And Kushner’s book, following a line of argument similar to that of Ricoeur, presents Job as the archetypical stumbling block to our accepting the ethical vision without qualification.
Closely associated with the theodicy of suffering as punishment is that of suffering as pedagogy. Some religious thinkers interpret our suffering as God’s way of teaching us important lessons. According to this
solution,
. . . God treats us the way a wise and caring parent treats a naive child, keeping us from hurting ourselves,
withholding something we may want, punishing us occasionally to make sure we understand that we have done something seriously wrong, and patiently enduring our temper tantrums at His "unfairness" in the confidence that we will one day mature and understand that it was all for our own good. "For whom the Lord loves, He
chastises; even as a father does to the son he loves."
(Proverbs 3:12)9
In this divine pedagogy God inflicts suffering on us in order to help us, and this is sufficient justification for our pain.
Kushner replies that this kind of theodicy tries to justify God, but it does nothing to alleviate concrete suffering. Kushner’s objections are like those of Jürgen Moltmann, a Christian theologian, who has also clarified the flaw involved in any such theodicy. The danger is that it gives a
place to suffering in the total scheme of things and thus subtly
legitimates it, making us reluctant to challenge its apparent metaphysical inevitability. The bottom line of any theodicy must be the alleviation of suffering. The theodicies of punishment and pedagogy, however, do not directly attack suffering but leave the sufferer in his or her pain,
rationally justifying it rather than eliminating it. Such theodicies can only drive us deeper into despair. And the God that lies behind such theodicies can only generate our resentment.10
A third unsatisfactory theodicy in Kushner’s opinion is the one that has God causing or permitting suffering for the sake of some grand design.
Perhaps my suffering is allowed or inflicted by the cosmic artist in order to add a dimension of texture and nuance to the world’s canvas. My suffering is then justified by the contribution it makes to the aesthetic value of the universe. Kushner is more impressed by this aesthetic texture and nuance to the world’s canvas. My suffering is then justified by the contribution it makes to the aesthetic value of the universe.
Kushner is more impressed by this aesthetic theodicy than by those of punishment and pedagogy. But he still has reservations. In the first place he thinks it might be wishful thinking since we cannot ourselves see any overall pattern of beauty. In the second place it still seems to make God monstrously insensitive to the particular suffering of individuals. The individual can only hate a God who sends suffering for the sake of the
"grand design."11
Here Kushner’s protest is reminiscent of that of the Russian
philosopher, Nicolai Berdyaev, who like Ivan Karamazov, was repulsed by the sacrifice of the individual to any universal cosmic harmony:
What values does the very idea of world order, world harmony possess, and could it ever in the least justify the unjust suffering of personality?
. . .
World harmony is a false and an enslaving idea. One must get free of it for the sake of the dignity of personality.
. . .God is not world providence, that is to say not a ruler and sovereign of the universe, not pantocrator. God is freedom and meaning, love and sacrifice. . . . The good
news of the approach of the Kingdom of God is set in opposition to the world order. It means the end of false harmony which is founded upon the realm of the
common. . . . There is no need to justify, we have no right to justify, all the unhappiness, all the suffering and evil in the world with the help of the idea of God as Providence and Sovereign of the Universe.
. . .
God is in the child which has shed tears, and not in the world order by which those tears are said to be justified.12 No world order, aesthetic or otherwise, can justify the suffering of innocents. It is inexcusable that any alleged deity would sacrifice the particular for the sake of the universal.
It might seem to the reader that the present book has proposed just such a theodicy in arguing for an "aesthetic" understanding of cosmic
purpose. Consequently Kushner’s critique of the "grand plan"
justification of God and suffering seem to apply also to the
"Whiteheadian" approach holds that "God is the poet of the world."
Hence I must Kushner’s complaints.
First Kushner maintains that we have not ourselves seen the whole cosmic tapestry and that it may be wishful thinking to suppose that there is an overall aesthetic pattern that gives a hidden answer to our
suffering. Such an hypothesis, he holds, does not respond concretely to our experience of pain. In response to this objection I can only reaffirm what I stated earlier: none of us is able to have a controlling or
comprehensive knowledge of any hypothetical higher level of meaning in the cosmic hierarchy or in any supposed universal pattern of beauty.
If there is a universal meaning that can make sense of our particular sufferings, we cannot expect to possess such meaning. Such meaning would comprehend us rather than vice versa.
Kushner himself seems to recognize this basic religious truth as
exemplified in the Book of Job which he finds to be the most important document ever written on theodicy. Job tries desperately to squeeze God into the framework of the ethical vision, seeking to measure the
Almighty according to the familiar criteria of justice and moral order.
But when the vision of a God who surpasses Job’s narrow expectation
of justice appears "out of the whirlwind," Job has to press his hands to his lips in a gesture of silence before the incomprehensible. I do not think that Kushner would deny that all genuine religious experience is characterized by such a sense of the ineffable. Therefore, the demand for clarity of comprehension in the issue of theodicy is out of place as it is in all religious consciousness. I think Kushner would agree.
Kushner’s second objection to the "grand design" theodicy is more forceful, however, and we must make it a part of our own aesthetic interpretation. Like Dostoevski and Berdyaev, Kushner finds repugnant any theodicy that sacrifices the individual to the universal. I would like to express my complete sympathy with this judgment and defend the aesthetic theodicy I have adopted from any association with such a callous approach. I suspect that the source of Kushner’s objections lies in the implied image or concept of God in the "grand design" type of theodicy. God is pictured or thought of as actively causing the
contradictions and sufferings that give nuance and texture to the cosmic tapestry, (or if not actively causing them, at least refusing to intervene to prevent pain while having the power to do so). And it is the idea of a God who causes or deliberately tolerates evil for the sake of a higher good that justifiably arouses our sense of indignation. For this reason I am in agreement with Kushner when he points out that the real issue concerning why suffering occurs at all is that of God’s power.
All three of the theodicies rejected by Kushner have in common the belief that God is the cause of our suffering, for whatever reason. And it is this belief that I would agree must be rejected. But I think it must be rejected on the very grounds of, and not in spite of, an aesthetic view of cosmic meaning. With Kushner I would be willing to say:
Maybe God does not cause our suffering. Maybe it happens for some reason other than the will of God.
. . .
Could it be that God does not cause the bad things that happen to us? Could it be that He doesn’t decide which families shall give birth to a handicapped child, that He did not single out Ron to be crippled by a bullet or Helen by a degenerative disease, but rather that He stands ready to help them and us cope with our tragedies if we could only get beyond the feelings of guilt and anger that